An American in Paris [Blu-ray]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Gene Kelly does his patented Pal Joey bit as Jerry Mulligan, an opportunistic American painter living in Paris' "starving artists" colony. He is discovered by wealthy Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who becomes Jerry's patroness in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Jerry plays hookey on this setup by romancing waif-like Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron) -- who, unbeknownst to him, is the object of the affections of his close friend Henri (Georges Guetary), a popular nightclub performer. (The film was supposed to make Guetary into "the New Chevalier." It didn't.) The thinnish plot is held together by the superlative production numbers and by the recycling of several vintage George Gershwin tunes, including "I Got Rhythm," "'S Wonderful," and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Highlights include Guetary's rendition of "Stairway to Paradise"; Oscar Levant's fantasy of conducting and performing Gershwin's "Concerto in F" (Levant also appears as every member of the orchestra); and the closing 17-minute "American in Paris" ballet, in which Kelly and Caron dance before lavish backgrounds based on the works of famed French artists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Features:
  • Concerto of a commentary hosted by Patricia Ward Kelly and featuring rare, Often previously unheard interviews with Gene Kelly, Vincente Minnelli, Arthur Feed, Alan Jay Lerner, Johnny Green, Saul Chaplin, Michael Feinstein, Preston Ames and Irene Sharaff and new observations by Leslie Caron and Nina Foch
  • S'Wonderful: the making of An American in Paris - spellbinding new documentary about the groundbreaking creation of a musical classic featuring 10 new interviews, including Leslie Caron and Nina Foch
  • New ultra-resolution digital transfer
  • American masters career profile Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer vintage FitzPatrick Traveltalks short Paris on Parade
  • Classic cartoon Symphony in Slang Love Walked in outtake song sequence
  • Audio-only bonuses: outtake songs gallery and Gene Kelly/Leslie Caron/Johnny Green radio proos
  • Theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Color Art Direction - 1951 (Cedric Gibbons, Keogh Gleason, Edwin B. Willis, Preston Ames)
•     Won Best Color Cinematography - 1951 (Alfred Gilks, John Alton)
•     Won Best Color Costume Design - 1951 (Walter Plunkett, Orry-Kelly, Irene Sharaff)
•     Won Best Musical Score - 1951 (Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green)
•     Won Best Picture - 1951 (Arthur Freed)
•     Won Best Story and Screenplay - 1951 (Alan Jay Lerner)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1951 (Vincente Minnelli)
•     Nominated Best Editing - 1951 (Adrienne Fazan)

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• Directors Guild of America

•     Nominated Best Director - 1951 (Vincente Minnelli)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Won Best Picture - Musical or Comedy - 1951
•     Nominated Best Director - 1951 (Vincente Minnelli)
•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comed - 1951 (Gene Kelly)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1992

• National Board of Review

•     Nominated Best Picture - 1951

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Gene Kelly - Jerry Mulligan
       Leslie Caron - Lise Bouvier
       Oscar Levant - Adam Cook
       Georges Guetary - Henri Baurel
       Nina Foch - Milo Roberts
       Eugene Borden - George Mattieu
       Martha Bamattre - Mathilde Mattieu
       Mary Young - Old Woman Dancer
       Hayden Rorke - Tommy Baldwin
       George Davis - Francois
       Madge Blake - Edna Mae Bestram (customer)
       Paul Maxey - John McDowd
       Don Quinn - Honeymooner
       Anna Q. Nilsson - Kay Jansen
       Alfred Paix - Postman
       Jeanne Lafayette - Nun
       Alex Romero
       Noel Neill - American Girl
       Art Dupuis - Driver
       John Eldredge - Jack Jansen
       Dick Wessel - Ben Macrow
       Mary Jones - Old Lady Dancer
       Nan Boardman - Maid
       Greg McClure - Artist
       Andre Charisse - Dancing Partner
       Ann Codee - Therese

• Director:

  Vincente Minnelli

• Producer:

  Arthur Freed

• Screen Story:

  Alan Jay Lerner

• Screenwriter:

  Alan Jay Lerner

• Cinematographer:

  John Alton, Alfred Gilks

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Saul Chaplin

• Featured Music:

  George Gershwin

• Songwriter:

  Ira Gershwin

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Johnny Green

• Editor:

  Adrienne Fazan

• Art Director:

  Preston Ames, Cedric Gibbons

• Set Designer:

  Edwin B. Willis

• Costume Designer:

  Orry-Kelly, Walter Plunkett, Irene Sharaff

• Special Effects:

  Warren Newcombe

• Consultant/advisor:

  John Alton

• Choreography:

  Gene Kelly

• Lyricist:

  Ira Gershwin

REVIEW:

• Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris set a new standard for the subgenre known as the "songbook" musical. Since the dawn of sound, producers had been attracted to films built around the published output of composers as different as Johann Strauss (The Great Waltz, Waltzes From Vienna), Jerome Kern (Till the Clouds Roll By), Cole Porter (Night and Day), and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (Words and Music). Mostly, the material was strung together, sometimes hooked around a fanciful pseudo-biography of the composer in question, and audiences grinned and bore the plot elements while delighting to the music. An American in Paris was freed of any need to embrace composer George Gershwin as an onscreen figure by virtue of the 1945 screen biography Rhapsody in Blue, in which Robert Alda had portrayed the composer. Rather, Minnelli, Gene Kelly, and screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner simply used the title and the substance of the title work as a jumping-off point for a screen fantasy that happened to utilize much of the major Gershwin song catalog (indeed, the 1992 laserdisc edition, with the unmixed music tracks on the alternate soundtrack, reveals dozens of Gershwin tunes buried in the underscore). Some of the inspiration for the film's 16-minute ballet finale came from the Red Shoes ballet sequence from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 The Red Shoes, while the presence of Leslie Caron, although logical to the plot, originated with some studio executive's notion that the Powell-Pressburger movie had been a hit "because the girl was 'foreign'." Whatever its inspirations and imitations, An American in Paris won seven Academy Awards and box-office success. The overall film (especially the non-musical elements) hasn't worn quite so well over the years, but it was a vital piece of cinema in its time, stretching the envelope of the level of sophistication that a major studio would pursue, and ripping that envelope to shreds with the climactic ballet sequence, which became the model for still more daring sequences in such Hollywood films as Singin' in the Rain and The Band Wagon and such European imitators as Black Tights and Kelly's own dance extravaganza, Invitation to the Dance. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi